Starbucks, Highbury Corner

As usual on a Saturday late morning I’ve dropped 7 year old off at football then rushed to grab a coffee and continue my ongoing Great Lincolnshire Novel. But I can’t get a seat anywhere. It’s Arsenal v Spurs today , starting early at 12.45. So everywhere round here is packed, even the coffee bars. How did I not know this? There was a time, not that long ago, when the first page I turned to in the papers was the Sport. Then the news, then international news, then the sport again to check if there’s anything I’d missed (not motor racing, horse racing or tennis, though, of course – but proper sport like football, rugby, boxing, cricket).

But now I have to read the Review section first, find out about the latest short story collections, history books, kids’ stories. This morning, rather than checking to see what the opinion was about the North London derby, or talk about the upcoming Ashes series, I’d turned first to Maggie O’Farrell’s short piece about the late poet Michael Donaghy in The Guardian. Sport isn’t like ‘’Finance’ or ‘Work’ sections – it doesn’t get used for cleaning boys’ football boots or clearing out the ashes. It’s also still not on a par with ‘Travel’ or ‘Family’, which are put in a ‘saved’ pile to read on a rainy day. But when the rainy day comes, we’ll cook soups, watch a film or look for pianos on Ebay or just stare out of the window.

I queue up for ages at Starbucks behind noisy fans buying skinny lattes then edge my way down the back where the fans disappear and it’s just mums and dads with prams and Guardians or students with laptops.

It’s a latte with an extra shot, with a BLT. It’s obviously not a proper bacon sandwich. For a start, the bacon is cold. How could it be otherwise when it’s covered in tomato and lettuce. They should have a big pan of bacon on the go at all times. The bread is good – tastes like granary Hovis. Too much mayonnaise on it though. And of course there’s no brown sauce. The coffee? It’s OK, but there’s just too much of it, and even with the extra shot it’s drowned in gloopy hot milk.

Is that Frank and Nancy Sinatra singing “I Love You’ on the speakers? No, it’s the rubbish Nicole Kidman and Robbie Williams version. The sound of muzak, jetplane woosh of the coffee machine and general hubbub makes me hear an extra layer of tinnitus, like a water rushing through a weir in my eardums. Brown sauce might have made it go away.

Comments

Well, there's the answer to my question on your latest post - you do like brown sauce in your bacon sandwich. You are now officially my soul mate. Starbucks is crap, though - wherever you go, their food and coffee has that sterile taste of globalised neutrality about it.